Biografia

The character of Livia Soprano is based on his own mother, Norma.

Has suffered from severe depression and panic attacks since his teens. His depression was so severe in his first year of college that he often slept for 18 hours a day.

He has described both of his parents as abusive, saying that his father was an angry man who belittled him constantly, and his mother was a "passive-aggressive drama queen" and a "nervous woman who dominated any situation she was in by being so needy and always on the verge of hysteria.".

Chase named the 'College" episode of _ "The Sopranos (1999)_ as his favorite because of its "self-contained nature". Co-stars James Gandolfini and Jamie-Lynn Sigler agreed it was perhaps their favorite episode as well.

Based Tony Soprano's experience in psychotherapy for depression and anxiety on his own.

Network television is all talk. I think there should be visuals on a show, some sense of mystery to it, connections that don't add up. I think there should be dreams and music and dead air and stuff that goes nowhere. There should be, God forgive me, a little bit of poetry.

I felt I was out of step with everything. I remember seeing Pretty Woman (1990) on an airplane. Everybody was laughing their heads off. "Ho-ho-ho!" It wasn't funny to me, it wasn't dramatic--it wasn't anything. I thought, "Why don't I just open the door and jump out?"

It wasn't something I was really dying to hear, because my response in my head was: I don't give a fuck - I hate television. But I wasn't used to being talked to that way. - on his reaction to Brad Grey's desire to sign him to a television deal.

Network dramas have not been personal. I don't know very many writers who have been cops, doctors, judges, presidents, or any of that--and, yet, that's what everybody writes about: institutions. The courthouse, the schoolhouse, the precinct house, the White House. Even though it's a Mob show, I Soprano (1999) is based on members of my family. It's about as personal as you can get.

[on a perceived change in the traditional view of men as heroes] There are people that will tell you the white American male is clinging to, and nostalgic for, his place at the top of the food chain. Maybe it isn't true anymore and that's what we're seeing.